Sunday, March 04, 2018

This paper examines the issue of whether workers learn productive skills from their co-workers, even if those skills are unethical. Specifically, we estimate whether Jose Canseco, a star baseball player in the late 1980’s and 1990’s, affected the performance of his teammates by introducing them to steroids. Using panel data, we show that a player’s performance increases significantly after they played with Jose Canseco. After ...

On top of the fact that the balls became bouncier as the core itself changed, previous research at FiveThirtyEight showed that they also became less air resistant. The decrease in drag is probably a result of a smaller, slicker baseball with lower seams. The change in air resistance could add an additional 5 feet to the travel distance of a fly ball. Combine all these factors together — a lighter, more compact baseball with tighter seams and more bounce — and the ball could fly as much as ...

Friday, March 02, 2018

Mr. George Perritt of Shreveport, La., right-handed pitcher for the New York Giants, says he’s through. No more baseball for him. He will not play for John J. McGraw in 1918, and never, never, never will bend another outshoot over the old pan at the Polo Grounds. So he says.
...
[Perritt:] “It won’t do any good for McGraw to come here to sign me to anything—unless he wants to buy an automobile…I’m through with baseball—through forever. I’m selling automobiles ...

He has two years on his current contract which gets him to age 33. I think the Giants can keep him for less if they extend him now. He’s a pretty down-to-earth guy. I doubt he cares about setting AAV records.

Harry Frazee, Jr., 15 years old, is an enterprising school boy. Last spring he wrote to his father, president of the Red Sox, for half a dozen new balls. Frazee, Sr., paid $1.25 each for them and shipped them immediately. Several weeks later he received another urgent request for a second half dozen, which also were sent with a letter asking what had been done with the first batch. Back came a reply which read:

Torres looks like a better fit at 2B. Walker hasn’t played much third. Add in his back issue, his poor defense, and his salary and it’s not difficult to figure out when the Yankees preferred to trade for Drury.

Walker wishes intangibles weighed more in the Yankees’ decision.

“Maybe it’s something that’s being lost in translation with teams — how are we valuing guys?” Walker said. “Are we strictly valuing them on numbers, or are we not able to quantify how they’re making an ...

He’s been great. His back problems the last couple of years could scare the Dodgers enough to keep them from offering him a seven-year deal. Would Kershaw agree to language which protects the Dodgers while choosing to not push them to the very top of the market?

Whether Kershaw and the Dodgers work out an extension before he opts out or he pulls the trigger, hits the open market, and signs a new deal, it’s reasonable to assume that his new pact will be a seven-year one. Not only did he (and ...

Crick was closing for Class AAA Sacramento when the Giants promoted him last June. The Giants were the worst team in the National League, but Crick joined a clubhouse with Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain, veterans with three World Series rings.

“They were in the weight room early, they were taking care of their bodies, rolling out, doing all sorts of stuff that as a minor leaguer, as a young kid, I had just thought was eyewash stuff until that point,” Crick said. “I ...

“I think you give them the space,” Cora said in a sit-down with NBC Sports Boston. “Obviously, we’re going to have some rules. Dress codes, and who can be in the clubhouse, all that stuff. … I will get the veterans or the core of the team in my office. Tell ‘em what I want from them, and then they meet and they’ll come back with a set of rules that they feel it’s appropriate for the team, and then we’ll discuss and we go.”

Bush has electric stuff that belongs in the back end of a bullpen, not as a starter every fifth day. Sorry, sixth day. He is willing, and he has the talent, but he is not built for the role.

Asking a power arm on a 5-foot-9, 180-pound frame is asking for an injury. He generates most of that power from his large trunk, but this is a guy who battled through shoulder and knee injuries last season when he pitched 52 1/3 innings.

“Now, it wasn’t so much his confidence growing each inning, but man, his chest started to poke out more, and I think he had this curve he was breaking off; he was unhittable that day. He became more erect on the mound, standing straight up and then later in the game, after finishing an inning, he’d look into our dugout at me with this cool little smile. Heh-heh, he sure had a little pimpin’ going on out there.”

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The Major League Baseball Players Association has filed a grievance against MLB, claiming that four teams - the Tampa Bay Rays, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics and Miami Marlins - have not spent revenue-sharing money in the fashion intended by the collective bargaining agreement….

“The MLBPA’s grievance against the Pirates is patently baseless” said Pirates president Frank Coonelly in a written statement. “We look forward to demonstrating as much to the arbitrator if the MLBPA ...

Some years ago [recently deceased professional boxer] Terry McGovern had an idea that he was a first class baseball player. He did perform with several semi-professional clubs, and got to putting in his mornings working out with the Superbas at old Washington Park. One morning Charley Ebbets found Terry coming out of the clubhouse, and Charley evidently did not like the idea of having strangers about the sacred diggings.

We each drafted a sort of mini-team—eight position players, one utility player and three pitchers. This is not unlike the makeup of some actual Negro Leagues team rosters. Teams had to be lean, players had to play every day (often two or three times every day), they had to play multiple positions and so on.

The only rule for our draft was that we were taking players based entirely on their performance in the Negro Leagues. That is to say we weren’t interested in taking Henry Aaron or Willie ...